Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel there’s a fire just waiting for fuel – Fuel

Every time I say something they find hard to hear they chalk it up to my anger and never to their own fear – Not a Pretty Girl

Get your subliminal decree and your false security, be all that you can be, be all that you can be – Decree

I saw Ani DiFranco and her guest act Gail Ann Dorsey a few Thursays ago at the iMac theater.

I discovered Ani during high school years with my circle of feminist friends and we were unable to get enough. Here was someone speaking to us in a way we understood. At a time when it felt like very few were, this was really ground shaking. Finally we had found a strong, amazing woman putting the things we were feeling in to words. We certainly weren’t getting anything like that from our high school environment.

And I’ll admit that I prefer people with bands backing them… I love listening to all the little accents that a band adds to the music. So while I’ve always loved Ani and her message, I’ll admit that sometimes I can get bored with her studio CDs when it’s just her and a guitar. So, on to the performance….

I think that Gail Ann Dorsey must have the voice that is made to accompany an acoustic guitar. I was so occupied by it that I was actually disappointed to find that her most recent CD was recorded with a band. She was great. Also disappointed to find that her song “Not a Genuis” (About feeling like everyone around you is coming up with all the good ideas and you’re not.) doesn’t seem to be recorded. In addition to her solo career, Dorsey has been a bassist for David Bowie and many other people for something like twenty years.

And then Ani came on and she is just so incredibly vibrant. Her energy is just amazing. I think out of anyone I have ever seen live, her performance is one that simply can not be duplicated in any way, shape, or form in a recording. She also has a band touring with her and it added such a nuanced sound. Allison Miller was on drums, Todd Sickafoose on upright bass and David Torkanowsky on percussion. (I was calling him a “xylophonist” all night. Oops!) I don’t know how to describe it, except that they were weaving these sounds that were just so three dimensional and deep.

Did I mention our seats were front row and center? I felt like…. in being there for her performance, she peeled back all these layers…. all the layers of depression and anger and sadness, the frustration at what goes on in the world. I felt like I was me, without all the grime and the feeling of being worn down and tired of all the absolute SHIT that goes on. And that wow, the world is a beautiful place and maybe it can really change. Overall, going to the concert helped. A lot.

The three songs that most reflected her sound, (no Allison Miller on drums /cry) and the ones that are my favorite so far off the CD I got are:
Decree
Half Assed
Alla This

They are from her Boston Live “Official bootleg” CD

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